Posted on 01/24/2011 3:33:09 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Dearly as I esteem Ross Douthat, I thought his blogpost today on the press and Sarah Palin did not hit the nail on the head.
Ross:
"No politician, from Bush to Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi, is hated so intensely by so many Americans [as Sarah Palin]. And this is what’s so problematic, to my mind, about much of the Palin coverage: The media often acts as though they’re covering her because her conservative fan base is so large (hence the endless talk about her 2012 prospects), when they’re really covering her because so many liberals are eager to hear about, read about and then freak about whatever that awful, terrifying woman is up to now."
Now, question: WHY exactly is it problematic for the press to cover a politician who is widely disliked? Palin is not going to be president, conceded. But George Wallace was never going to be president either, yet time spent thinking about him between 1962 and 1972 was not time wasted.
There is a mood I know in the conservative world to downplay Palin’s significance. From the vantage point of 2011, the enthusiasm for Palin once felt by many conservatives – including conservative intellectuals – looks excruciatingly embarrassing. Better to say, “Who us? Never! It was Josh Marshall and Andrew Sullivan who inflicted Palin on the national debate.”
(No, I’m not making that last bit up. Here’s Ross again:
"The fact that TPM was the first to seize on the “death panels” provocation is neither “funny” nor “ironic.” Instead, it’s typical of the Palin-press symbiosis. If you were a casual consumer of political news in 2009, you would assume that Palin’s famous “death panels” remark received outsize media attention only after it became a rallying cry for the right-wing masses. But in reality, it received outsized media attention in part because a liberal Web site seized on it and ran with it as an example of the scary awfulness of Sarah Palin. And that pattern keeps repeating itself. It’s why there’s more Palin coverage in publications like TPM, MSNBC and Vanity Fair (not to mention, of course, a certain Palin-obsessed Atlantic blogger) than in many conservative outlets: Not because they’re the only places willing to tell the truth about her, but because they’ve built an audience that believes the worst about her, and enjoys wallowing in the fear and loathing she inspires.)"
You’d never know from reading that passage that conservative thought leaders continue to use and justify the death panel phrase to this very day.
Ross would like to convince us – convince himself perhaps – that Palin-mania is a libel hurled at innocent conservatives by traffic-hungry liberals. Yet only just last week, the Wall Street Journal’s house blogger James Taranto had this to say:
"Professional jealousy and intellectual snobbery, however, only scratch the surface of the left’s bizarre attitude toward Palin. They explain the intensity of the disdain, but not the outright hatred–not why some people whose grasp of reality is sufficient to function in society made the insane inference that she was to blame for a madman’s attempt to murder Rep. Gabrielle Giffords."
"This unhinged hatred of Palin comes mostly from women. …[T]his goes beyond mere jealousy. For many liberal women, Palin threatens their sexual identity, which is bound up with their politics in a way that it is not for any other group (possibly excepting gays, though that is unrelated to today’s topic)."
True, Taranto like many others – possibly including Ross – has moved to a second order degree of Palin-mania. Like Jennifer Rubin in her article “Why Jews Hate Palin,” these second-degree Palin maniacs no longer defend Palin. Instead, they try to solve the baffling mystery: how could anybody possibly object to the half-term governor?
Is it because they look down upon those who lack fancy college degrees? Because they hate babies? (Those were Taranto’s theories.) Or perhaps because they despise military moms? Or are they just jealous that Palin is so damn sexy?
I’d be willing to join Ross in pretending that the whole shameful Palin episode never happened if I could assure myself that the second-degree Palin defenders really had learned the lesson of this experience. I see no sign of it.
So as a contribution to the debate, let me try to explain why the Palin phenomenon cannot be left behind quite so fast.
In 2008, the Republican party nominated for the office of vice-president a person who is now pretty universally agreed to be unfit for the presidency. (Even Taranto agrees with that.) Concededly: it’s not the first time in the history of the republic that this has happened. But here’s the difference between Palin and, say, Spiro Agnew or Henry Wallace. The Palin nomination elicited a huge outpouring of argument from Republicans and conservatives denying that competence mattered at all in a potential president.
Admittedly, much of this defense was insincere. But unfortunately – not all. Palin we could quietly consign to the attic of Republican embarrassments. The apparatus of excuse and justification that surrounded and protected Palin until the day before yesterday – that still chugs away over at the Wall Street Journal – that apparatus remains an overwhelming impediment to any hope of a more responsible conservatism of the future.
Wasn’t Obama born in Canada? This Canadian needs to sit down and shut up. No one cares what you think. You aren’t a Natural Born citizen, just like the poser acting as if he is President.
Move along now Frum.... no one cares.
It's time for the PDS sufferers to let go.
All I can say is, the more they try it, the bigger the blowback is gonna be.
If they keep it up, they are going to fall so hard in 2012, they may NEVER recover. In my gut, it sure seems like they are grossly overplaying their hand with Sarah Palin.
The elitists may think TEA Partiers/conservatives were angry in 2010, but they have absolutely no concept of what's headed their way in 2012 if they maintain their hate-mongering.
If the American people swallow the garbage they are being fed by these "opinion" writers, then there is truly no hope for this country...
No need to explain, I was asking a rhetorical question.
“Now, question: WHY exactly is it problematic for the press to cover a politician who is widely disliked? Palin is not going to be president, conceded.”
First off, nice of Frum to concede Palin is not going to be President. He’s a moron. Second, if the Slimes and Compost didn’t talk about Palin, they would have to talk about Bambi. It’s deflection at its best.
Sarah Palin attracts thousands of people who are willing to pay to hear her speak. Republicans all over the country sought her endorsement during last year's election campaign. Most of whom won. She sold almost a million copies of her book in a week. She hosted a TV series that was TLC's #1 rated show.
The real question is, other than by those among the far left and a handful among the Republican establishment, in what way is she "widely disliked"? Because, I just don't see it.
i don’t doubt David Frum is gay. it’s just that aren’t metrosexuals supposed to look well kempt? David Frum looks like a bum.
It says "David Frum" in the title.
Palin hasn’t the foreign policy experience to be president. Obama didn’t either, of course.
Of course, she might just do like Reagan: Appoint very good folks to run the country. This is how a good CEO does it, and she very well might be able to do a good job of this, in contrast to Obama, who appoints clueless leftists and then blames us when the economy goes to hell. (excuse my french).
The main problem with Palin is that the press etc would destroy her with lies just like they did Bush, and tried to do with Reagan.
However, she is young, and like Winston Churchill (who was also hated by the press and the establishment) might save the country in the future after years of being in political exile.
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